Cassette 9: Metropolitan Museum of Art (1981)/Transcript
This is the official transcript for the episode which can also be accessed for free at'' patreon.com/withinthewires'' ELAINE: Welcome to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in its new Harlem Island home. I am Elaine Hara, director of contemporary exhibitions. Thank you for attending “Claudia Atieno: In Memoriam.” This exhibition has been curated by Atieno’s friend and fellow artist, Roimata Mangakahia, who spent two years living with Atieno in her artists’ commune in Cornwall in the early 1970s. The commune was deserted in 1972, when Atieno vanished. We know, of course, that she died - although there is still much uncertainty and speculation as to how. We might expect that these paintings or Mangakahia’s narration would address the rumours of foul play or open windows on Atieno’s story, but we feel there is little to be gained here. Please instead enjoy this retrospective on Atieno’s known life and work, and join us in farewelling one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists. For membership to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, please see the kiosk located at the Hudson River Ferry station at the Saint Nicholas Park Dock. ### ROIMATA: I have thought long and carefully about what to include in this exhibition. I have thought about which works Claudia would want included, and what she would want left out. It is not easy to guess at a person’s opinions years after they are gone. It is hard to know if the impressions you hold of them are accurate, or if they have been coloured and altered by changes that have happened within yourself. Perhaps it is for the best that she was unable to provide any input into this exhibition. Creative people are not always the best curators of their own work - when you have been so close to a piece for as long as it takes to conceive it, refine it, and in the end, create it, it becomes difficult to see how it might fit into a wider picture. When you are busy examining the flower in front of you, it is hard to see the mountains in the distance. I hope Claudia would approve of my choices. I wish I could share them with her. She is one of the finest artists I have ever known, and I would very much like to know her thoughts on how I have chosen to celebrate her work. She is one of the closest friends I have ever had, and I would very much like to again hear her feelings on the world, on art, and on ourselves. I have selected a range of works from various points in her career, including the unfinished painting she left behind when she abandoned our home in Cornwall. ### One - House with Yellow Door We’ll start with one of my favourite of Claudia’s works. It has a playfulness to it that she rarely shows in her work, although it was pervasive in her life. There is a cliché that artists are moody and unfriendly - malcontents who pour so much of themselves into their work that they have nothing left for the people around them. I am not convinced this cliché is very often true - it certainly wasn’t in Claudia’s case. She was warm and lively and welcoming. She liked to talk about anything except herself - she was exceptional at pulling people out of themselves and loved to be surrounded by people as much as possible. This painting, while simple, is imbued with that liveliness Claudia carries with her through life more clearly than anything else she’s done. Look at the house. At its ordinariness. The ordinary street as well. What do you define as ordinary? You expect to enter this home and be met with a warm meal and a generous glass of wine, which is exactly the kind of impression Claudia gives as well. No one walks away from her unfed, which is as admirable a quality as any I can think of. What kind of food do you like? Do you need food to feel comfort? The people standing outside the house are ordinary people, but they look like people who would care about how you are, and offer you a place to stay if you needed one. Do you need a place to stay? What does caring look like? It is a portrait of Claudia’s past life, of her childhood, and there is no way to know whether it is an accurate one or not. It is a portrait of her house, and her family, before she was made to leave them. The house no longer exists and the family are scattered to the winds. The vision may be an idealised vision of a childhood that never happened, in place of a more painful one, or at least a more imperfect one. Or it may be the reality - a snapshot of a life of bliss cut short by the rebuilding of society. It’s hard to say which idea is the more tragic. Perhaps there is always loss and pain when we look back at a person’s childhood. ### Two - Woman In Bath I have never allowed another artist to use me as a subject. Sitting for an artist is tedious at best, and I have never had much patience. But Claudia was always persuasive, and every artist should know how the person under their brush feels, so here we are. I lived with Claudia for a while on an island off the coast of Cornwall. The house had a few idiosyncrasies - one of which was a bathtub just off the corner of the living room. It stood on it’s own on clawed feet, not hooked up to any plumbing - filling it took dozens of trips from the kitchen with pots and pans of water. Emptying it was complicated. Portraits never show the full breadth of a person’s experience - even when that experience is just that one moment captured. What do you see in a portrait like this? The blackness of a woman’s hair rising above the curved white edge of the bathtub. The curve of her fingers as they droop towards the floor. The steam rising from the water. Do you see the conversations that happened between artist and subject? You do not. Can you hear what’s being said? You cannot. Can you hear what’s being left unsaid? What are you leaving unsaid? Why would you do that? A portrait is always a picture of secrecy. No matter how open and honest your subject. No matter how skilled and perceptive the artist. A portrait always hides more than it tells. So here is the only portrait ever painted of me, by another artist, and you can barely see my face. You’ve no hope at all of knowing what I’m thinking. But are you trying anyway? Please do not. ### Three - The Empty Pier Claudia painted this long before we met. I don’t know where it is - I never asked, and if I had, it’s likely she would have evaded the questions, spun it round to ask something about me instead. The beach is lonely, and somehow feels like it’s been lonely for a long time. It is not the loneliness of a beach in winter, remembering the laughs and games of the summer, feeling like they will never return, even though they come back every year, like clockwork. No, this beach feels like it hasn’t seen a human being in years, maybe ever. It is bleak and quiet. But for the pier you would think no one had ever discovered it. The pier itself is weathered, but looks sturdy at first glance. It is not until you look closely that you see how rotten and perilous the struts supporting it are - stretching, brittle and weak, into the sea below. The sea also looks, at first glance, reliable and safe. But below the shimmering green of the surface, a darkness moves. It is a portrait of a storm about to strike, of a ground about to fall out from under someone’s feet, it is a portrait of peace about to end. ### Four - Unfinished Work I did not see this painting until a I began planning this exhibition, although Claudia must have started it while we were both in Cornwall. It is a painting of the house, or of the island, or of neither and both of those things. You can see the north west corner of the house, and behind it the sloping grass leading towards the sea, and the sea fading off towards the south. At least, you would have been able to see the sea, had she finished the painting, as it is, there is simply a thin, pale wash, waiting to be built upon. At the southern edge of the island, there are a few sketched out lines. They could be the beginnings of a tree, although I can’t remember that any tree stood on that part of the island. They could be a figure, standing at the cliff’s edge. That spot was a favourite of mine, while I lived there. At high tide you could dive into the sea below, and it was like jumping into oblivion. Claudia often asked me how I was brave enough to do it, but it was perfectly safe, at high tide. I encouraged her often to take the plunge. It would release her of every feeling, every weight. To fall so far, for so long, and at the moment you feel you cannot stand the sky any longer, the sea hits you, returns you to the cold shock of birth. Your mind clears. Your skin aches, and you cannot climb back up quickly enough. But as with my suggestions about her art, she did not take my suggestions This was also the last spot I saw her, before she went away. I had been painting outside, taking my last few moments of the sun fully above the horizon to finish a seascape i’d been working on for some time. These were also my last few moments on the island before I would travel to Amsterdam. It was low tide. The time for diving had passed. It was the only thing I wanted to do, besides leave Cornwall, to get away from Claudia. I passed Claudia on my way in to collect my things, and head to the mainland and we said our farewells. Neither of us had ever been sentimental, and our farewells were brief. Plus we both assumed it wouldn’t be long till we saw each other again. But she said “Roimata,” and when I turned, she hesitated. She rarely hesitated in her words. “I’m going to take the plunge,” she told me. I wanted this to be figurative and literal, but I understood she was ready to try diving. She did not understand the tides. The last reflection of the sun’s arc was below the water now. I think of this moment a lot. I play it over and over in my mind. There was a moment, you see. There was a moment when I could have told her. I could have told her it was low tide. Can you hear what’s being left unsaid? That moment is frozen now - perhaps it always has been. I see it from outside my own body. I watch my face, trying to see there what I was thinking. Trying to see myself make that decision. Or fail to make that decision. I can’t see it. My face is blank, impassive. Pleasant. I watch myself in the moment where I didn’t tell Claudia Atieno not to cliff dive. The moment where I didn’t tell her the tide was out, and the water had given way to sharp rocks. This was the last time I saw her, and I honestly cannot tell you what she did or what happened to her after that moment. I wasn’t there, I didn’t see. I had already packed and left for Amsterdam. I had work at the Rijksmusuem. I don’t know if she was brave enough to dive, in the end, really. I hope she was. I hope she freed herself from the weight of an audience’s expectations. I hope she threw herself into a moment of brief bliss with no thought as to how that moment might be perceived. I hope she felt the joy of falling into oblivion. I hope she felt reborn. Category:Transcripts